Friday, May 3, 2019

№ 587: Looking Forward As Justice Looks Backward

BEST OF NO POSSIBLE WORLD, May 2

I hope Chief Justice John Roberts remains so vain he
would wish not to be seen as a new Roger Taney*
the Chief Justice who wrote the Dred Scott decision,
who, I've heard said, loved the dread Inquisition.

Both Taney and Roberts came from privileged positions
without feeling for/interest in others' positions.
To their similarities (many) I will not allude,
except to add that if they're equal we're screwed.
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*[F]ifth chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. . .He was the first Roman Catholic to serve on the Supreme Court. — Encyclopædia Britannica

legal case in which the U.S. Supreme Court on March 6, 1857, ruled (7–2) that a slave (Dred Scott) who had resided in a free state and territory (where slavery was prohibited) was not thereby entitled to his freedom; that African Americans were not and could never be citizens of the United States; and that the Missouri Compromise (1820), which had declared free all territories west of Missouri and north of latitude 36°30′, was unconstitutional.   Ibid